The sample is the biggest pine tree in Japan, known as "Entsuji no matsu." It's a Japanese Black Pine, reputed to be 650 years old. It's located on the island of Shikoku in Kagawa Prefecture at a Buddhist temple called Entsuji. The trunk is 7 meters in circumference and the tree is 10 meters tall.

...you'll see a map of the prefectures of Japan. Click on any prefecture and you'll get an enlarged map of that prefecture with dots of various colors representing big trees of various types (for example, the pink dot is for cherry trees). Click on a dot to get photos and descriptions of individual trees.

We're planning our next trip to Japan next fall and my husband is an arborist and big fan of big trees, so we were happy to find this site to help us include some fabulous big trees in our itinerary!

We're really excited about this next trip. I'm sending one of my employees to the Kyoto University of Art and Design intensive seminar on JG (which I attended a few years ago), and I just have to tag along myself! Before long we had also made plans to include my husband (the big tree fan), a close friend & her daughter. Still have to figure out how to pay for three trips --- but these things have a way of working themselves out.

We're thinking of making a home base in Okayama and doing day trips out from there for about a week of the trip. Does anyone have suggestions of interesting gardens or other cultural activities within striking distance (e.g., w/in two hours' train ride one way from Okayama) of there? Also looking for a good place to stay near the station (preferably with a good communal bath).

There's an interesting restored castle garden at Akoojoo (east of Okayama) I learned about in Niwa magazine. Eastern Shikoku also seems to have a lot of interesting stuff (including that biggest pine tree).

Old trees abound around temples and shrines for sure. I'm lucky enough to live near two mountains festooned with old growth forests. One is a sugi (cedar) forest and the other a broad leaf evergreen forest. Here's a kusunoki (Cinnamoma camphor v. japonica) growing in the later. It's the biggest one I've seen in the wild here, but some temple specimens rival it for size:

Thanks, Tom (Plantfreak) for the great tree portrait. Do you live near Yakushima? That looks like a great destination if you have some days to roam around.

Hi Scott! :) I'm just trying to win the "Boss of the Year" award. Actually, somebody else paid for my first trip to Japan 30 years ago, and it suddenly seemed like a good time to pass on the favor! Plus, I have my own self interest at heart --- it's more fun to work with people who are willing to learn how to say things like "monkey butt" in Japanese.